World to Meet Human Intelligence Soon: AI and Humans to Be Integrated in New Tech

A startup believes that the next step in the course of evolution is the merger of humans and artificial intelligence to make HI or human intelligence.

It may be reasonable to be afraid of the developments in the AI field. People such as Stephen Hawking and Elon Musk have already warned about the grave consequences of the misuse of the technology.

Interestingly, Bryan Johnson of Kernel believes that HI may be the next step for human progress. He initially started his startup Kernel with $100 million.

He found online and mobile payments provider Braintree in 2007 and was bought by PayPal for $800 million in 2013. He launched the OS Fun with $100 million of his personal capital to support inventors and scientists who aim to benefit humanity by "rewriting the operating systems of life."

His investments include endeavors in a lot of fields, including medicine and aging (Human Longevity Inc.), replicate the visual cortex with AI (Vicarious), expand access to resources (Planetary Resources, Inc.), reinvent transportation using autonomous vehicles (Matternet) among others.

Now he plans to devote his time to build HI through Kernel, with the help of 15 years of academic research at USC, founded by the NIH, DARPA among others. He hopes to combine concepts of AI and neuroprosthetics to achieve his new goal.

According to Singularity Hub, it may be important to remember that the brain is composed of 100-billion cells called neurons, and all of them make 100 trillion synaptic connections. These cells help us become who we are and control everything we do.

However, sometimes our organs and senses fail, and neuroprosthetics can help replace the function of impaired organs. They've been around since 1957 when the first cochlear implant was invented.

Interesting, BCIs or the brain-computer interface can actually be a possibility. It involves interfacing the digital world with the CNS (central nervous system) to augment or repair human cognition.

This can be akin to a neural lace, invented by sci-fi writer Iain Banks which describes a fine mesh inside the brain that acts as a wireless brain-computer interface. Kernel wants to achieve HI with a similar concept.

Kernel will try to achieve this by trying to mimic the natural function of neurons to fire around the brain. If they can do this, and restore and improve circuitry, and then we can answer a lot of questions.

For instance, we can make memories stronger and weaker or work with a neural code the same way we do biological and genetic codes.

According to Singularity Hub, Ray Kurzweil believes this is a possibility. And this is considering that the director of engineering at Google has made more correct and documented technology predictions of the future than anyone.

He said that by 2030, we can send nanorobots into the brain via the capillaries that can provide full immersion of virtual reality from within the nervous system and even connect our neocortex to the cloud.